


commander tano.

by metalhawk



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Ahsoka Tano Gets a Hug, Hurt Ahsoka Tano, Hurt/Comfort, Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:08:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27805840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/metalhawk/pseuds/metalhawk
Summary: “Youngling,” says Dooku, fixing his red-yellow eyes on her. Ahsoka is a hunter by nature, but that stare makes her feel like she’s never been anything but prey. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano, CT-27-5555 | Fives | ARC-5555 & Ahsoka Tano, CT-7567 | Rex & Ahsoka Tano, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano, Padmé Amidala & Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano, Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker
Comments: 18
Kudos: 155





	commander tano.

“Commander, how have you been liking your stay on Nevarro?” Fives asks, shouting over the sounds of blasterfire and lightsabers cutting through metal.

“Oh, it’s been _perfect_ , Fives,” Ahsoka says with fake excitement, propelling herself upwards and landing on the shoulders of a B2 battle droid. She plunges her shoto into its head and falls backwards, flipping and landing on her feet like a loth cat. “Wouldn’t dream of being anywhere else.”

In a way, it’s true. Here with her men, in the midst of a battle, and the strong presence of her masters from the southern front – steady waves of _resolve-strength-comradery_ – she feels almost at home.

“We have some new arrivals, sir,” says Rex from beside her, firing two shots from his double pistols and subsequently hitting two droids. “Fox reports five commando droids on speeder bikes approaching from the hills.”

Ahsoka glances to her right to see five speeders approaching as they descend from the top of the foothills, rushing along Nevarro’s grey, gravelly landscape.

“Delightful,” Fives grounds out.

Ahsoka twirls in the air, slicing off the heads of four measly battle droids by the time she hits the ground. She looks towards the quickly approaching commandos, and nods to Rex. He nods back. She runs, holstering her sabers.

“Good luck, _verd’ika_!” Fives shouts after her, and she grins back at him. _Little soldier._

She hops onto one of the speeders that was miraculously still parked outside of a half-destroyed bakery, snorting as she sees that there’s a pin-up of her master painted on the panel in front of the seat. She remembers seeing Tup painting that – he’s actually quite the artist – and laughing so hard her chest hurt when she saw Anakin’s blushing reaction to it.

Ahsoka presses the gas, pulling her saber into her hand with the Force and slicing as many shrieking battle droids as she can. They crumble to the ground as an ugly trail of charred metal, and Ahsoka rolls her eyes at the frantic, modulated cries of “ _Jedi!_ ” that she hears just before she cuts them open.

The commando droids are about thirty kliks out now. She leans forward, gravel and cold air unforgiving against her skin. One of the commandos yells something in monotone droidspeak, and then she finds herself weaving through the blaster fire of five speeders that she’s heading straight into.

_That’s right_ , she thinks, _focus on me_.

She holsters her saber yet again, and immerses herself into the Force. If she times this right, she might be able to knock them all out before they so much as think about shooting down one of her men.

A blaster bolt grazes her arm, and she hisses. Immediately comes a wave of concern from Anakin, who nudges her gently through their bond. “ _‘Soka?”_

All she can do is send a wave of reassurance in response.

She’s so close – running head-on into the commandos who fix her with a look of absolutely nothing, just readying their weapons and speaking in modulated voices that she can’t hear over the white noise of battle.

She counts down the seconds, lets the Force surround her.

_Up. Now._ Ahsoka’s instincts scream. She pulls the handles of the speeder bike up without hesitation, and she’s lifted nearly ten meters into the air. The speeder sputters, not made for such a quick jump in altitude, but it holds. She pushes down just as quickly as she’d come up, and lands just behind the enemy speeders, the front of her bike scraping against the back of a commando’s.

She decreases speed and fires the bike’s blasters, swerving swiftly out of the way as the vehicle bursts into flames and accelerates into the speeder in front of it with a hiss. Pieces of shrapnel rain down on her and the heat of the explosion envelopes her.

One of the commandos managed to escape its bike before it was broken to pieces. It runs after her, metal feet slamming down against the gravel with each step. It grabs onto the front end of her bike and cuts through it, sending the front half of her bike tumbling to the ground and causing her speeder to spin wildly out of control.

It lurches forward with a howl, and Ahsoka slows in an attempt to stabilize it. It’s wobbly and turbulent, but she has driven on pieces of junk much worse than this. Her master has shown her a few tricks for driving the most karked up vehicles out there. With the help of the Force, she stabilizes it to a manageable degree.

She ignites her lightsaber and twirls it in her hand, severing the arm of the droid and flinging it into one of Nevarro’s winding lava streams with the Force.

Three left. Nevarro City gets closer and closer.

She has no doubt that her men could take care if these droids if they survive Ahsoka. But she’s seen those droids wipe out twenty men in one a few minutes. Twenty of her _friends_.

_I will not let my men die needlessly,_ she promises herself with resolve, hands tightening on the handlebars.

She steadies her bike, falling into place just a hair behind her three remaining opponents. Igniting her saber, she beheads furthermost commando droid. She reaches out in the Force and slams its bike into the side of its companion. They scrape against each other, the driverless speeder crashing into the tail end of the other bike. The back of the speeder scrapes against the ground, but remains somewhat operational.

The droid returns the favor and slams into her, unsheathing its vibroblade. She ignites her saber and the two weapons collide, crackling with energy. She growls at it, baring her fangs. It just stares back, unphased and abiotic. The droid does not see her shoto being pulled into her hand until it is ignited and plunged through its chest.

It falls and crashes behind her.

One left.

She senses the shot before its taken. A blue bolt of plasma flies from one of the crumbling buildings and hits the remaining droid square in the chest. Its speeder is sent whirling into a group of fumbling B1s.

Ahsoka smiles gratefully at Fives, who had taken up position as a sniper since she left. She lets out a sigh of relief as he gives her a salute from the rooftop.

There is a moment of near peace.

_Danger!_ Her senses scream, just seconds before the mechanical laughing of a hyena droid reaches her ears.

“Incoming!” She hears Rex yell. The boots of her men slam against the ground as they scramble for cover. Ahsoka runs to the center of the plaza where they had been fighting and outstretches her hands.

She summons the Force. The bomb falls. Ahsoka _pushes_ , launching the bomb as far as she can into the sky.

Red and orange flower across her vision as she’s propelled backwards. She’s pelted with gravel and chunks of durasteel. Smoke fills her lungs. Her ears ring.

Anakin sends a rolling storm of _fear-desperation-distress_ across their bond that almost _hurts_. Master Kenobi sends a much softer wave of concern through the second-hand bond that they share.

“Commander!” She can hear Rex shouting distantly, as if he were miles away.

She groans and tries to sit up, but white-hot pain immediately flares through her stomach the moment she clenches the muscles. Ahsoka’s hand drifts down to her stomach and comes back stained with the pinkish-tinge of Togruta blood. Shrapnel.

As if that weren’t great enough, she feels a sudden, dreadful appearance touch down just feet from the entrance to the plaza. She hears the buzzing electrostaffs and heavy footsteps of MagnaGuards.

Anakin pushes more unrestrained _fear-desperation-distress_. “ _Get out of there!_ ”

Rex drops to his knees beside her. “ _Ad’ika_. We have to—"

“ _I can’t, I can’t, Master—_ ” She says, trying to clamp down her fear.

She feels _cold_. A shadow passes over Rex’s helmet.

“ _Dar’jetii_ ,” He says, growling. His pistols are pointed upwards at the dark presence she recognizes as Count Dooku.

Ahsoka’s vision begins to blur, her ears still ringing. Pain is pulsing through her body from its epicenter in her stomach, and her mind hurts with all the _fear-anger-danger_ in the Force.

She grits her teeth, and pushes herself upwards, snarling at the her great-great-grandmaster. It’s hard to breathe. She notices her shields have fallen, emanating _hurt-fear_ into the Force like a distress signal.

“ _I’ll be there, Snips. I’ll be there!_ ” says Anakin.

“ _Hold on, little one_ ,” says Obi-Wan.

“Youngling,” says Dooku, fixing his red-yellow eyes on her. Ahsoka is a hunter by nature, but that stare makes her feel like she’s never been anything but _prey_. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

He steps forward.

Rex growls and fires two shots. Dooku sidesteps them with ease and uses the Force to slam Rex’s head against some debris.

“Rex.” She wheezes.

It’s so hard to breathe. It’s so hard to stay awake. It _hurts, oh Force it hurts_ —

“Sleep, child.” Dooku says.

“ _Ahsoka!_ ” Anakin says desperately through their bond, and it’s the last thing she hears.

* * *

“Rex,” Someone says. He groans. The floor is shaking underneath him, the familiar turbulence of the gunships. “Rex!”

“ _Al’verde_ ,” he groans. Commander.

“Rex, where is she?” He recognizes the voice as his general. _Where is she…where is Ahsoka? Ahsoka!_ Verd’ika _!_

Rex opens his eyes to see Skywalker staring down at him, his face twisted into a scowl. Fives was kneeling at his other side, holding Rex’s hand between his own. Rex squeezes, and Fives squeezes back.

“The karking _dar’jetii_ ,” Rex said, head pounding. He sits up. “I couldn’t save her. I tried but…Dooku is…”

Rex trails off, shivering at the way Dooku had uttered “ _youngling_ ” and bored those yellow-red eyes into Ahsoka as if he were staring into her soul.

Skywalker’s eyes squeeze shut and he sighs, as if he had already known and just didn’t want to believe it. Rex had no doubt that he did know – he’d seen the way his _jetii_ shivered after sensing the presence of a Sith. Rex had never been let down by those senses.

“We will find her, Anakin,” Obi-Wan says, placing a firm, comforting hand on General Skywalker’s shoulder. “Ahsoka is strong.”

“But we both know how strong Dooku is,” Skywalker says, glaring down at his gloved hand. His voice drops to a whisper. Shadows fall over his face; the red lights of the gunship make him look absolutely deadly. “She doesn’t stand a chance.”

Obi-Wan is quiet. Grief – an emotion Rex knows all too well to miss – falls over his face for a brief second, before he returns to his normal unphased Jedi façade.

“You can always count on me and the 501st, General,” Rex says. “Ahs—Commander Tano is one of us.”

General Skywalker gives him a small smile.

Not only that, but Ahsoka nearly killed herself just to minimize the casualties from that bomb. She nearly killed herself to save people who were born to die. She’s sixteen, and without hesitation, threw herself in front of a _bomb_.

Rex can already see their reunion.

“Di’kut jetii _, don’t ever scare us like that again._ ”


End file.
